Kansas 70.3 Results

Sorry to disappear unnanounced for the last week. My intent was to leave a note to explain my abcense, but I did not have time in the flurry of activity surrounding the days of late last week. So I offer it now along with my race results.

Since my last post, I raced in the Kansas Ironman 70.3 in Lawrence, and as I had hoped, posted my best time ever for this distance. I have done now four 70.3 (Half Ironman) distance races, and this was by far my best. After registering on Saturday, we drove the bike course, and I will say that I was a bit concerned. There were many hills and several rather large hills. But my previous two races at Buffalo Springs had hills too so I felt that I could handle it and  get the race done. The only question was how fast. It turned out very good.

I don’t recall the exact time of my first Half Ironman way back in 2005. It was the “Hotter Than Hell Half” at the Kansas Speedway, and it was hotter than hell. My finish time was just shy of 7 hours which was a dissappointment. My 2007 race at Buffalo Springs in Lubbock, Texas, was just slightly better at 6:51:55. In 2008, also at Buffalo Springs, I had completed Ironman Arizona just 2 months earlier so my training had been much more extensive. My time for that race was 6:38:17. So this year my goal was to beat 6:30:00.

So what was my time? 6:10:09! That is a 28 minute improvement over last year. And honestly, I think it was a much harder bike course at Kansas than it was at Buffalo Springs. There were many more hills and even a modest headwind after the turnaround. And the bike leg is where I made up all of that time believe it or not. My bike leg in 2008 was 3:21:51. This race it was 2:54:52 for an average of 19.0 mph. This is by far my best performance on the bike ever in any race. My swim and run times matched my bests from previous races. SO I AM ECSTATIC! It would have been hard for me to do much better.

My eventual goals are to first break the 6 hour mark which is very doable now that I have gotten so close. Then I would eventually like to break 5 hours. That may take me a few years to get down to that, but that is my goal. Now that I have gotten over the hurdle on lowering my biking times, I need to focus on my running. And one of the first things I need to do is to trim way down to about 175 or 170 pounds. That will take some dietary focus too. Maybe I can get it done, or partly done, by Ironman Arizona 2009 the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Next race….Redman 70.3 in September in OKC. I’ll post on FSRT later today.